Note 625 — Chapter VI · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: SIMON MAGUS

Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 17, pp. 259, 260, Cruice. That this refers to the conjunction of man with his twin-soul or affinity is certain from Hippolytus’ former quotation from the Apophasis, that man was made by God οὐχ ἁπλοῦν, ἀλλὰ διπλοῦν κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν “not single, but two-fold according to copy and resemblance”: and that he will “perish with the world” unless he be made into the likeness of the Spirit who was borne upon the face of the waters, and who was, like that of which it was the reflection, androgyne (Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 1, p. 253, Cruice). “But if he be made into this likeness,” Hippolytus continues, “and is born from an indivisible point as it is written in the Apophasis, that which is small will become great. And that which is great will exist in the boundless and incorruptible aeon, which will not be born again.” Besides the idea of the indivisible point, which we shall meet with again in the Bruce Papyrus (for which see Chapter X, infra), it seems evident that Simon was here teaching that those who find their twin-souls will rise in the scale of being and thus escape the cycle of changing existences dreaded by the Orphics (see Chapter IV, supra). An explanation of the metaphor of the flaming sword is suggested later. See note 3 on p. 67 of vol. II, infra.